we hold on to the
familiar because it
gives so much comfort

a scouting trip

recently i re-discovered the little inflatable kayak that's been in the trunk of my car. the weather was warm that day and as i gazed down our little bluff staring at the wetlands below, a light bulb appeared atop my head.
we inflated the little boat with a handy cigarette lighter air compressor, which was also in the trunk of my car and set off. the wetlands is a home to many critters including waterfowl beavers and even coyote. on this day though they all seemed rather shy. i let my little guys all take turns rowing about a bit while i held on to a safety line just in case. they're all terrific swimmers but for most of them the kayaking was a new event.


as they paddled all around i gazed across the little channel at my workplace just beyond, and thought "so close. is it possible to row to work one day?" and so as my oldest pushed the boundaries a little further i asked him to try and scout me a route across. "can it be done?" i shouted. "i'm not sure" he replied. looked as though i would have to find out myself. and that is a subject for another entry.
but this day was a fine one indeed. as we strolled back along the trail picking berries along the way i marveled to myself on the sweet and simple joys of summer and making the most of what we have around us.

the glamour of war
has deserted me traded
in for rock and roll

faces part 007

my love for you is unmeasured...

i keep trying to quit, but it's so hard...

happy squash is happy :^}

inside this chamber
perfect design instructing
we all go around

???

i saw something like this in a dream the other night. if anyone can tell me what it means i'd be much obliged...

between here and there
this wall draws a line to block
the cool difference

street ball

stay cool, and every day's the 4th of july. take it from the greyhound and dr. j.

plans turned upside down
as the world suddenly changes
to reveal itself

short subjects

Kurt always carried a guitar pick in his pocket with 37 cents in loose change. A quarter from the year he was born, a 1937 buffalo nickel he found once on a department store floor, and seven wheat pennies from various years including all those that America fought in World War II.
Kurt didn’t play the guitar, but he carried the pick nonetheless in hopes that one day he might be sitting around at a party with some of his cooler friends when someone would pull out a guitar and ask one of the people at the party to play. When the guitar player would say “but I don’t have a pick” Kurt would coolly reach into his pocket, shaking the change around and then slowly pull out his bright red Fender medium and say, “here you go man”. After that he hoped all the people gathered round would nod in approval as the guitar player said “thanks man”, to which Kurt would take a beat, then reply “no sweat”.


Bill loved his daughter Christine and her new husband Todd. And even though they now lived over 800 miles away in California, they would still return home at least twice a year, once in the summer and again at Thanksgiving or Christmas. Once during a summer visit they were all in the living room after dinner watching TV, when they discovered a new nature documentary together called “Planet Earth”. And watching it on Bill’s new HD flat screen television, they all sat mesmerized, each letting out “oohs” and “aahs” at various times during the program.
That Christmas Bill delighted especially in one of his gifts to Todd and Christine, the DVD box set of Planet Earth. And although they were both thrilled to receive this gift and agreed with Bill when he reminded them of the super time they’d all had together, nonetheless, after it returned with them to their apartment in California it sat on the shelf unwatched.
And when Bill visited them on his next Birthday and toured their apartment, he proudly made note of his box set gift sitting on display right next to the first season of Lost, and nodded to himself smiling.

i stare at closed doors
held fast by the opposite
tender of my dreams

tom's trot

this fellow came knocking on our door the other day. when we opened the door he was here scratching in the dirt. curious. we call him tom and i've been seeing him more and more around the apartments. the other day i ran into him by the koi pond. he was having a little bath. who knows, i might see him at the gym next.
although we may have missed the last opportunity i think the next time he comes knocking we'll invite him in to dinner.

my love lies buried
here deep beneath the earth as
i lie still moaning

secret of the caves

during our vacation we journeyed from the cabin to the "moaning caverns" in the gold country. when i was younger my best friend's mom took us to "mercer caverns" and i have to say the whole experience left no impression on me. later while traveling across the country i stopped at carlsbad, which was quite memorable, especially watching the bats fly out at dusk.
moaning caverns, so named because of the audible sounds that come up from below caused by dripping water deep in the lowest chambers is a really fascinating and somewhat grim place. the original opening is about 12 feet wide. it drops down about 20 feet to a landing. it then drops off nearly 300 feet. from this dark precipice many men and animals met their fate. their bones formed a pile below at one time over 20 feet high. that height has dropped now to about 14 feet as many have been looted and excavated over the years. but the ones that remain are protected by law as the burial site of native-american people. perhaps their voices are the ones now moaning.


our little group descended out of the heat down a set of narrow stairs. the humidity and close quarters proved too much for half our intrepid travelers and they returned to the earth's surface. my oldest boys and i pressed on. at the bottom of the wooden stairs there was an amazing and now ancient steel spiral staircase. built by one of the engineers who designed the golden gate bridge and in 1922, he spent his honeymoon here with his new bride assembling this marvel.


from here we were treated to the fantastic world below. hanging stalactites that resembled bacon, otherworldly looking formations, some that sounded hollow when knocked on, some that shone luminescent. having just watched the original 1959 "journey to the center of the earth" i was well prepared for the journey.


at the bottom of our spiral staircase we entered the grand hall. here was a space below ground large enough to house an upside down lady liberty. our guide turned off all artificial light and told us that after 15 minutes we would all be hallucinating. after a week we would be blind. fortunately he returned the lights before any of our party went mad. the temperature was a constant 71F made more tolerable by the presence of a man made pool nearby.
we enjoyed our time in the belly of the whale and felt a strange sensation in our temporary dwelling. i thought about all those souls, bones piled nearby and the cruel trick the caves had played on them. i thought of the fear that must have raced through their minds and hearts in those final seconds and of all those who came before who made homes in caves and how now, even as i write this, it is from another dimly lit man-made cave.

so i'll meet you down at claussen's corner. we'll shoot stick and toss the bull. we'll spill our tears over mugs of brew. at claussen's there'll be no one there 'cept you and me. and when we leave to head back to our homes and stagger a bit, we'll know that that place exists. where trouble mingles with forgetfulness for a while and we are loved.

the sign of my hand
stamped here to resist time and
electrical current

insulated

and this is the crazy collection of my wife's grandfather who is 95 this year. these are old electrical power pole insulators that live full time at the family cabin. most of them are glass but he does have this very large ceramic example as well.


why is this interesting you might ask? maybe it's not, but when i first saw these i wasn't sure exactly what they were. some had been turned into candle votives and i dismissed them. but after a second and third look i began to realize this wasn't their original purpose. so i got to talking to grandpa about them. how did you come by them?


apparently back when they began to replace these (with polymer materials) the utility guys would drop these from the poles as they went and just left them. so if you took a walk you might find a pile of these sitting at the bottom of a string of power poles.


there is something really beautiful about them apart from the function they used to perform. like art deco depression-era glass and ceramic. these really pretty lines and curves.


and a reminder too that a long time ago people used to make things by hand. there were once great glass and ceramic factories in this country producing these things on order for the various utilities across the country. linking art and commerce on the very earliest representation of the grid.

we huddled below
the prying eyes a moment
taking a break here

i'm looking through a different looking glass lately. something's coming...

today comes only
once as all the tomorrows
turn to yesterdays

back home again now amidst the familiar. the rest i had was helpful, but now it's time to get back to work...

black soul

(and now back to our regularly scheduled programming)

my son spotted this black beauty in our garage and i captured her. she is the widow. of late she has taken two more husbands within the confines of her new glass apartment. beware the hourglass. time is running out...

ride

it's all about the ride...
(and it helps if you've got a cool bird in tow)

check it

check the cool wax is one of the inspirations for my entry into the bloggiesphere and though i have been remiss in posting samples of my own procured wax of late, i take comfort in knowing brainwerk has taken similar sabbaticals.
take a look though, he is back and posting like mad of late. stop in, look around and who knows who you'll bump into, maybe bill shatner himself.

happy happy

i've given props to ron slattery and his bighappyfunhouse before, but it goes without saying that when i'm feeling the melancholy come on i can always turn to bighappy to bring me out of that dark place. so thanks for that slats, and thanks for keepin' on.

excelsior!

i'll be out of town this week and thought i'd give a shout out to some of my favorite hits of late from the intraweb, and let them take turns guest hosting while i'm out.
if you're like me and your comic books roots are firmly planted in the marvel silver and bronze ages then i believe you shall dig excelsior!, a tribute to the fantastical art which sprang from those eras. nothing like starting off your day with marching orders from stan lee's army, face front true believer!

rick monday says "earn this"...

taking liberties

as i have been plodding along recently in my readings, i have unconsciously stumbled into the 18th century. i didn't mean to, it just happened. it started with the tom hanks produced mini-series "john adams" with paul giamatti. as i watched i realized i knew very little about early american history. the later stuff, sure sure. but this business before photography is admittedly a weak area for me. and so, after watching the featurette with david mc cullough which followed the series i was wont for more and checked out his other book from the local library.
and as the end of june fast approached i began to realize my new studies were quickly coming to an intersection with the country's own prescribed date of birth. and it's interesting how much my perspective on all this has changed simply by spending a little time trying to get into the minds and ideas of some of the key figures involved in these events. sometimes it's difficult to get past the formal language, but if you hang in there you can sometimes get an idea of just how potent this idea was called independence.

"every age and generation must be free to act for itself, in all cases, as the ages and generations which preceded it. the vanity and presumption of governing beyond the grave, is the most ridiculous and insolent of all tyrannies. man has no property in man; nether has any generation a property in the generations which are to follow" - thomas paine

we weigh the options
lined up before us and ask
what will matter most

(photo courtesy bighappyfunhouse)

schleich

this is our schleich toy collection. as you can see it is growing. for quality hand painted plastic figurines you'd be hard pressed to find better examples than the ones that come from gmund. these started out as little stocking stuffers that made great bath toys, and over the years we've added to the wildlife refuge. in addition to the critters we also have a couple native american tour guides and a dashing young fellow in what looks to be a land rover defender and an abercrombie and fitch t-shirt. sometimes i like to get the whole schleich assembly together and preach to the wild animals.


if you pose them in just the right fashion it can really look like some crazy is about to break out.


either that or the lion and lamb thing has miraculously taken place.